Jancsó is not an anomaly in a Hungarian cinematography that had a rich
tradition even between the two World Wars. However, he holds a special place
because he differs significantly from all of the other directors. This is
especially evident in his most successful period, which includes films between
The Hoples Ones and Red Psalm

Miklós Jancso (1921), the author with an undeniable European reputation, is one
of the most distinguished Hungarian film directors. Today, in his eighties, he
is a veteran who still directs films with unabated rhythm. Thus far, he has made
more than thirty films, the most recent one in 2003 – Kelj fel, komán, ne aludjál. He achieved international recognition when
his film The Hopeless Ones (1965) was shown in the official program of the Cannes film
festival. That was the time of affirmation of the French New Wave, British Free
Cinema and Czech cinematography, the time when film critics were mostly in favor
of the auteur theory, and the time when many expressive authorial personalities
from different European cinematographies made a name for themselves. At that
time, a masterpiece from Hungary was still sort of a sensation. However, Jancsó
is not an anomaly in a Hungarian cinematography that had a rich tradition even
between the two World Wars. In the 1950s, even before Jancsó appeared, Zoltán
Fábri became famous across Europe (1917). Karoly Makk, István Gaál, András
Kovács and today the most esteemed among them, István Szabó, built their careers
simultaneously with Jancsó.

Still, Jancsó holds a special place because he differs significantly from all of
those directors. His most successful period includes films between The
Hopeless Ones  and
Red Psalm (1971), which won the award for the best director in Cannes. In
that period, he was interested in showing, through different historical events,
how the mechanisms of power and repression work. Consequently, his viewers can
draw associations with the contemporary Hungarian government that came to power
after the breakdown of the revolution in 1956. At the same time, Jancsó is not
interested in individual destinies. The government’s cruelty is impersonal and
many people suffer from it, so he usually focuses on the repressed masses as a
whole. However, most of the films that portray important historical occurrences
and follow the destiny of the masses usually lack that intimate individual
experience of the tragic events, and thus become merely an illustration or
propaganda of certain ideologies. Unlike them, Jancsó’s films are exciting
because of the way he shapes the stories into films. In a small number of
sequences, his camera moves constantly and focuses on many frames of reference –
from long shots that reveal the whole to close-ups that display individual
characteristic reactions. Such procedures, even with entirely true-to-life film
images, can be overly stylistic and often seem like a ritual that puts the
portrayed events into a sort of a mythical context.

In the next ten years, Jancsó made several films with Italian producers. The
most famous among these is Vizi privati, publiche
virtú (1976); one of the producers was Jadran film from Zagreb) about
Austro-Hungarian prince Rudolf. In this film, the director found his reasons for
political opposition in the form of a rebellion against a narrow sexual
framework bound by tradition. It was also an attempt to adjust his pronounced
authorial style to commercial demands, but having achieved little success in
doing so, he tried to reestablish his high authorial reputation by returning to
important events from Hungarian history. Thus he made two parts of his planned
trilogy Hungarian Rhapsody (1978) (Magyar rapszódia) and
Allegro barbaro (1979). Although far removed from his previous masterpieces,
they are still among his valuable works. Afterwards, Jancsó began to research
new themes and means of expression, slowly entering the sphere of art films, in
which he achieved great success, (these films were often shown at the most
famous international film festivals). The film that best represents his artistic
orientation is Lords Lantern in Budapest (Nekem lampast adott kezembe ur
Pesten, 1999). Nevertheless, Jancsó earned his prominent position in the
European cinematography primarily because of his films from the latter part of
the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. (Tomislav Kurelec)